ascencion
by fiesa
Summary: Anakin Skywalker does not fall. Anakin/Padmé, Han/Leia, Luke/Mara. (Three times three)
1. Three Conversations

**ascension**

 _Summary: Anakin Skywalker does not fall. Anakin/Padmé, Han/Leia, Luke/Mara. (Three times three)_

 _Warning: Three times three short stories, set in the same universe. The usual warnings for fractured, drabble-esque plot._

 _Set: AU._

 _Disclaimer: Standards apply._

* * *

 **One – Three conversations**

 ** _One_**

She wakes up slowly, like surfacing from deep, black water.

The sheets are warm and it is quiet: there is no reason for her to leave the depths of slumber, no disturbance. And yet, Senator Padmé Amidala Naberrie, former queen of Naboo, knows that there is a reason for her awakening.

Anakin next to her does not move.

He is a light sleeper, anyway, she has woken him more often than not trying to slip past him. But she has yet to make a noise. And he is still, so terribly still, doesn't even seem to breathe. Fear grips her, lances through her in a flash, freezes her on her sheets. She lays there, unmoving, and strains her entire being to hear _anything,_ to feel his breath or his warmth or his heart over her own, thrumming heartbeat.

She hears only silence.

Her hand moves, grabs his arm, her lips form his name, soundlessly, and then he's up, as if he expected her to attack him, his breath comes in harsh pants that tell her he has indeed been holding it before. His skin is clammy and coated with sweat and he rolls out of the bed without even glancing at her, with all the speed and grace of a Jedi, crosses the room until he reaches the window and stops only when he has put the maximum possible distance between them. There, finally, he freezes, panting and forcefully calming his breath, and her heart beats so quickly it _hurts_.

"Anakin."

He is a dark shadow against an even darker night and everything in her cries out at his sight. He hasn't felt that young – that lost and terrified – to her since a rescued slave boy was taken from his mother and his home, and sat across from her, shaking and determined not to cry.

 _Are you an angel?_

"Anakin." Her voice is a whisper. He doesn't move, his entire posture screaming his distress. "Anakin. What's wrong?"

He answers after what feels like an eternity.

"Nothing." He tries to sound normal, but she _knows_ him. "Bad dream."

Had she really expected his nightmares to be over, after everything that had happened on Tatooine? Why has she never thought about that? Guilt crushes her, all the things she had carefully locked away streaming out at once. Has she really been so busy that she never noticed anything before? How long has he been hiding this? How couldn't she have noticed?

"Your mother?"

"No." Curt, clipped. It hurts her heart. "Go back to sleep."

And - she should, shouldn't she? Because he is so brusque, and because he's not talking to her even though they barely see each other these days, because he's always out on his missions and she is always away at some Senate meeting or other, because she has to leave, early in the morning, and he will be gone when she returns. Because if he doesn't want to talk to her, who is she to force him to? Because, because, _because_ -

 _Do you know how much I love you this second?_

Padmé pushes the sheets back and swings her legs out of the bed, joining him at the window. The air is cool, she shivers, but she does not go back. Her touch makes him jerk away and she freezes, half hurt, half understanding, and waits. Just waits for him to calm his breathing a bit more, to relax just the tiny amount that makes it possible for him to feel her on that level she knows he can but can never experience herself, no matter how much it hurts. Just waits until he risks a sideway glance at her, waits and doesn't move at all. Padmé just waits until he leans into her with an exhalation that sounds like grief and guilt at the same time, like anger and denial and desperation. His skin is hot, as if he's instantly sorry for pushing her away in the first place. But he doesn't look at her. And despite the things that have been standing between them for the past months Padmé does not hesitate a second when she wraps her arms around his middle, too small to reach his shoulders, and draws him in. Grounds him, _anchors_ him, angrily determined not to let him drift away.

Because he has been, in the past weeks. He's moving further and further away and she can't do anything to stop him.

There is so much she wants to say – plead with him, promise him, hear his promises in return. She has questions aplenty. Where do you go when nobody knows where you are, what do you see when you look at me, why do I feel you are constantly slipping away? But all of them are still-born. Padmé presses herself closer to him, takes his hand and lays it on her stomach, and wishes, wishes, _wishes._

The baby kicks her.

They freeze.

There it is, _again._

Anakin separates from her, his mouth opens wordlessly as he stares at her, at her stomach, at her face.

Padmé can't help but laugh in wonder: it's the first time the baby makes itself known, the first time she feels it like that. Her love for the life growing within her surges, takes away her fear and distress, replaces it with breathless wonder and love. And Anakin he is staring at her, wide-eyed, the child she met, the man she got to know, the heart she loves so much.

"Does it – has it – _Padmé_ -"

"This is the first time," she tells him, giddily. He sinks to his knees, lays both hands against her stomach, closing his eyes, and Padmé feels tears scratch at the back of her eye lids. Together, they breathe, and when Anakin looks up at her again the sensation in his blue eyes is overwhelming.

"You are a miracle."

He's kneeling before her in a way he didn't even do when he proposed to her, and she feels - "Babies generally are-"

 _Worshipped._

"No. Padmé, I mean _you_."

He gets up, wraps her in his arms, and for the first time in a long time Padmé thinks _yes, this is my Anakin, he's here again._ His heartbeat at her cheek is fast, she can feel it, and waits for it to synchronize with hers, as it so often did before. But oddly, it doesn't. Anakin's arms are tighter than usual, too, heavy, the way his breathing is ragged and his skin hot makes her stiffen, and she realizes he is shaking.

"Anakin." She extricates herself from his arms against her own will, but she needs to look at him.

"Anakin. Look at me."

He doesn't, and she knows something is wrong. For how long? Longer as she has wanted to accept it. She felt there was something in him but chose to ignore it, too blissful with the news of her pregnancy, too busy with her work, too preoccupied in hiding their relationship in the first place. Guilt shoots through her again, hot and painful, and she cringes. Anakin is back instantly, his worry written all over his face. So he still cares, at least.

She waves him off, takes his face in her hands instead, looks at him and wills him to understand with her entire heart.

 _Tell him. Force or God or Destiny, whatever it is that supposedly guides us, that supposedly laid the burden of being the Chosen One on this boy, I never asked anything of you but please, tell him. It's okay to let go, sometimes. It's okay to share. Tell him, the child you supposedly have been waiting for for centuries, don't let it be lost like that-_

"Anakin. Something is wrong. What is it?"

 _(And to think there had been times when she had hated Qui-Gonn for telling her-)_

He stares at her, unblinking, and the child is back in a heartbeat. Young, vulnerable and lonely, completely deserted by the cockiness he has carried like a shield for the past years. The child - afraid, broken, heart-breakingly brave. Anakin averts his eyes, swallows. Takes a breath, swallows again. But he doesn't pull away, and _Padmé prays._ And then it breaks out of him like water from a broken dam: His dreams of her death, of their child's death, of fire and war and devastation. The ugly, painful nightmares, his doubts, fears, hesitations. Palpatine's plans and promises. _You will have the power to protect her._ And fear – again and again – for her. For _her,_ for their child, so human, so trivial and yet so all-encompassing. Her legs give out under her and she sinks to the ground, Anakin follows, burying his head in her lap, she strokes his hair, numb, unseeing. Padmé fell in love once in her life. Now, for the first time, she learns what a broken heart feels like. Because hers breaks for him, over and over, like jagged shards of a broken glass being trampled again and again until the pulverized particles are ground into the mud and dust of the bleeding earth.

Morning finds them still on the ground – the light is grey and weak, she briefly thinks they are not the only ones mourning _(a choice, a man, a future)_ , but moving would have entailed stopping, and once Anakin began he hardly seemed able to stop. He hasn't really looked at her yet but she feels the wetness of his tears on her skin, the trembling in his shoulders.

The way he grips her hands, as if they are the only thing grounding him.

"I don't know what to do, Padmé," he whispers, broken, afraid. "What should I do?"

Padmé has been a politician for all her life. She knows manipulation – even if it is subtle – when she sees it. There is a voice in her head that screams, screams, _screams_ , refuses to stop until she has killed the man she trusted with _everything_ she had ever dreamed of with her own hands. For what he is doing to her life, her goal, her _dreams_ – for what he is doing to her _beloved._ But she also has been a politician for long enough to know that the first course of action seldom is the best.

"You need to tell someone."

They cannot solve this mess by themselves. She knows very well, and she knows telling one person is hardly enough. But before all of it – before addressing Palpatine's _(she can't think of him as Sheev anymore, the man who had been her friend, all these years)_ treason – she needs to help Anakin. Anakin needs to find his strength, and she only knows one person who might be able to help. The second person, next to her, who has known him since he has been a child and who loves him, unconditionally and deeply, even if he huffs in exasperation at his sight most of the time.

"You need to talk to Obi-Wan," she whispers, and feels exhaustion tug at her core. "Anakin. Please."

He doesn't look at her, but he stills, slightly, as if contemplating. Eternities pass, and Padmé counts her heartbeats. The light from outside is grey and dull. And finally, he nods.

Padmé closes her eyes, feels the softness of Anakin's hair under her fingers, and lets the tears fall.

She wakes up hours later, in their bed. The clouds are shifting, the sun is coming up. And Anakin is right there, beside her, curled around her, protecting her even while asleep himself. His breath is steady and his features relaxed, and now that she knows he was plagued by nightmares she can tell the difference. He looks drawn and exhausted, suddenly aged, his handsome features shuttered and grey. And Padmé never loved him more than then, and never feared for him more than then.

Still, he is peacefully asleep, and with the clearing daylight, Padmé dares to hope.

* * *

 _ **Two**_

He expects Obi-Wan to be angry – well, _furious_ , actually.

He has every right to be.

Anakin's master never was of the calm, centered, steady sort. Anakin's master is honest and strong and impatient, at times, and the rashness of his youth sometimes shines through his countenance, a brief, bright reflection of a temperamental boy who learned about loss too early, and took responsibility too early but never shirked away from it. A boy who learned to love his duty, and learned to love the boy placed in his care despite everything. Still, despite the glimpses of the past, Anakin's master is a Jedi Master. And Anakin can't remember how often he has tried to crack that solemn expression in the past, to make the older man _show_ some sentiment, some reaction. He'd been happy if it was _anything_ , impatience, exasperation, even anger. Any show of sentiment would have been proof that Obi-Wan _cared._ But he'd never managed it, never really got to know what his master carried in his heart. He'd given up, at some place. Now, if there ever was a situation that warranted Obi-Wan Kenobi letting go of his _freaking_ Jedi calm, then it is this one, surely.

There is a Sith Lord attempting to topple the Republic, and it's a man they all have trusted implicitly.

And Anakin fucked up. He's not sorry about his choice of words. Anakin fucked up badly. He needed someone to confide in, wanted someone to look at him, to acknowledge him, to trust him with all the things the Jedi - _Obi-Wan_ \- did not trust him with because he was young and angry and impatient, yada yada yada. He'd come so far since Tatooine. He'd gone to lengths to prove himself, he'd trained and fought and even killed. And still, it had been nothing but _still much you have to learn young padawan_ and _you're too impatient Anakin_ and the silent voice, ever-present: _you killed him._ Sometimes he's not even sure if it's his voice or his master's, because he can understand Obi-Wan's frustration, hates it as much as he hates slavers and heat and sand. But he has come _so far._ Why, so why - Oh well, he went and fucked up, and so much of what he's been doing is completely fucked up, too, because it feels like everything he's ever done and said has been only been paving the road to ruin. And there is no way back: his trust, his childish wish for acceptance and acknowledgement have made him trust _Palpatine_ – something in Anakin recoils at the name – have helped him establish his base of followers, have aided in his rise to power. It hasn't been Anakin alone, but it feels like that: the Jedi made him Supreme Chancellor, they gave him the _Senate_ , for Force's sake, they have been consolidating the fundament of his power up to the point that there is only little left to make the balance of power topple over, once and for all. Yes, the Jedi have been helping him, but it _feels_ like that means mostly _Anakin_ has, and that's – that's something he can't even _think_ about.

 _I_ trusted _you._

He still shudders at the revelation of the man's Dark Side powers. But then, he didn't really _say_ anything, did he? He just _suggested -_

"You have a _feeling_ ," Obi-Wan echoes, and Anakin knows it's going downhill from here.

His teacher looks like he's going to explode already when Anakin finally gets to the _Hey, by the way, I am married to Padmé - excuse me, Senator_ Amidala-part, and the vein ticking at his temple is not helping him look more sane.

"You are married?!"

Well, that could have gone better, he supposes. Oh, wait, there's _more_ –

"PREGNANT!"

Seems like his teacher even abandoned the pretense of Ask first, Don't Judge.

And Old Anakin would have argued.

Old Anakin would have mocked and teased and deflected, would have joked, and tried to explain by using flashing gestures and funny metaphors. Old Anakin would have reminded his master of his deeds, the things he did, the beings he rescued, would have hinted at his education. _Did you not tell me?_ But Now Anakin is tired. Tired of sleepless nights, of the emotional wreckage of his nightmares and the fact that Padmé found out, the terror he still feels, the world in flames. Dreams of his master dead, of burning his beloved, of his child dying. He is so sick and tired of these images in which he _kills the very things he loves most –_ Now Anakin is tired and sad and desperate, and yet, he's better than before. _Padmé_ , his inner voice whispers, and he lowers his head guiltily. He's still terrified she might die. Perhaps she will. But… There is a line he cannot cross because suddenly he knows, with a security that evaded him before, that _she wouldn't want him to._ And even his master - the man he's tried to impress for almost all his life, his master which he has failed by turning towards someone else, trusting the very man who wants to eradicate the Galactic Republic - even if his master never saw him as he'd hoped he would he knows Obi-Wan wouldn't want him to succumb to the darkness. How strange it is, this sudden change in perspective, the sudden knowledge that what he is doing is _right_ , and that, even if he fails, he has tried, at least. How strange, the fact that he bound himself to other people despite knowing that they would leave him so quickly, that he twined and twisted his life around their presences and their faiths, their beliefs and their lives, and how their fear and worry do not increase his own but soothe, somehow. It makes the terror… Not less, but _manageable._ Maybe that is because he talked to Padmé, because she has a way of putting things into perspective. Maybe that is because he now has told his master everything, no matter whether Obi-Wan will believe him or not. Lines _, lines._ If Padmé dies, Anakin will die, too. But Padmé never would want a Dark Force user to rise to power, she loves the Republic so much, would fight for it until the end. She loves every single being in the galaxy, and for her faith alone – maybe hers can carry him a bit, when he falters?

Obi-Wan is breathing heavily, his eyes blazing. His voice, despite his earlier outburst, is calm and controlled. Its tone burns through Anakin, worse than the phantom pain he still feels in his hand.

"I expected better of you, Anakin."

In the past Anakin would have rebelled; shouted, argued, protested.

Now, he just lowers his head. "I know, Master. I'm sorry. I failed you."

" _What_?"

At the startled question, he lifts his head again, and Obi-Wan is looking at him with a puzzled expression.

"You _failed_ me? Anakin, you might drive me close to the edge of madness on days that end with y. I confess, I expected more of you, expected you to act differently, or, at the very least, to tell me earlier. But I never thought – not for a second – that you were a disappointment."

It is a punch to the gut.

"But…"

"But?" Obi-Wan echoes. "Anakin, I've known you since you were a child. I've trained you, I've watched you grow. I've seen you use the Force to protect the helpless and to save those who couldn't protect themselves. You make me want to slap you multiple times a day because you are reckless and disrespectful and don't think enough about the consequences of your actions – but I never once thought you failed me."

His breath hisses out in a stream of air, but he still cannot allow himself to - to believe. Obi-Wan sounds honest. There is no resentment in his voice, no anger, nothing Anakin can detect. But there is - there is that one thing, that _one_ -

"I thought – I mean – Master Qui-Gonn…"

"My Master," Obi-Wan says and speaks extra slowly, and on any other day Anakin's defiance would have been peaked to maximum but today he just waits, frozen, for the verdict, "died to protect you. I began training you to honor him, not because I resent you for his death."

Anakin, up to this point in his life, never realized how much he had longed to hear just these words. He feels his eyes burn, refuses to cry, refuses to lift his head.

"Your allegations against the Supreme Chancellor are grave. But why in the name of the Force would I not believe you? I know you. I _raised_ you. And you are not a liar, Anakin."

"But..."

"You broke the Jedi Code, and you are willing to carry the consequences. You _came to me_ , Anakin."

"Master…"

"This is not the child that pushed the blame onto others anymore, that never was willing to carry responsibility. You've grown so much, Anakin. My Master would agree. He would be proud of you, and so am I."

He doesn't even have the time to look confused. Obi-Wan's warmth floods him, like it had so often when he'd been a child, when he'd desperately clung to it and then pushed it away, thinking it was forced, pretended. But their student-teacher bond is still alive, still fills him with trust and calm and peace. Anakin never saw his master as his master only: Obi-Wan had been a friend, and something like a brother. On some occasions, something like a father, too, and a teacher, a role-model. _I want to be just like you._ Anakin holds on to the nearness, the trust – not like a child, not desperate and clinging. But like it is something precious, breakable. And suddenly he can see Obi-Wan's doubts, too, his hesitation to get too close. _Spoil him you can't, Obi-Wan._ His worry for him. His utter, complete trust.

And then Obi-Wan shakes his head and sighs.

"Why is it that you always get yourself into such a mess when I take my eyes off you for even a second, Anakin?"

But even Obi-Wan's reproachful tone feels more like a fond sigh. Laced with true, heavy worry. This is something that is larger than the two of them, something that goes beyond Anakin's breaking of the Jedi Codex. In comparison to Palpatine's treason, a Jedi ditching the No attachment-rule seems trivial indeed.

"What do we do now?"

Obi-Wan sighs. "I don't know. Let me think this over for a night, and then we need to talk to the Council. We need to react quickly. If he told you about his allegiance, he is almost ready to size the power."

"Just confronting him won't help. He's incredibly powerful-"

"He managed to not only hide his powers but to completely shut himself off against even the most far-fetched suspicion. _Of course_ he is extremely powerful."

Anakin can't help it: he grins.

It hurts a bit, because he is not used to it anymore. And he's a bit afraid, because he can't say how Obi-Wan will react, and that aside, this is not a situation that warrants humor. His fear for Padmé and their child is still there, like a leaden stone in his stomach. But Obi-Wan's warm presence is like balm to a wound.

"Don't say it," his master warns him, his eyes blazing.

Anakin feels his heart lift. "You are getting soft at your old age," he teases, and jumps aside when Obi-Wan's hand comes down to knock him on the head. He bows his head again.

" _Thank you_ , Master."

"I am proud of you, Anakin."

They sit, side by side, and the silence is familiar.

"So, when can I visit the Senator? Congratulations are in order, apparently."

And his master's dry tone gives Anakin a raging headache as he suddenly imagines the two most important people in his life meeting on those new, now out-in-the-open, terms.

* * *

 _ **Three**_

A failed arrest. A breaking window.

Soundlessly, a Jedi Master dies in the fall. Somewhere else, all over the galaxy, clone troopers turn in unison against their Force-sensitive commanders. They never see it coming.

Fire and destruction.

Devastation.

Death.

Jedi, dying. Younglings. _Children._ Their screams echo in his head, their blood is warm on his hands. It feels like a dream, and he knows it is none.

"Do it, young Skywalker, and you will gain the power to protect what you love."

Anakin lifts his light saber, and the child in front of him does not run. It knows him, that man in the black cloak, the blond hair billowing out around him. The child looks at him, bewildered but trusting, fascinated by the iridescent, green blade -

"Together, we will be unstoppable!"

Padmé smiles at him in the morning, her eyes full of love, _Do you know why I fell in love with you in the first place?_ She is brilliant in her pregnancy, warm, welcoming, a place to return to, the home he never had.

"You find the power to overcome your fears in yourself alone. There is no life, only darkness."

Obi-Wan looks like he is torn between absolute exasperation and utter amazement. _You didn't even realize they were twins? What Jedi are you? I taught you better, Ani._ His presence in the Force is warm and trusting, and indeed, proud: all the feelings Padawan Skywalker never could see because he was too afraid to believe.

"Give in to your anger and fear."

And the twins. The twins, their children, his and _Padmé's,_ these miracles, these tiny wonders that already radiate in the Force so brightly, too young to have their own presence and yet so beautiful and precious -

His blade comes down in a green, lethal arc, sealing his fate and the fate of the galaxy forever –

"You and I will hold the galaxy in our hands!"

 _You will never be alone._

And Anakin Skywalker shakes off the visions, lowers his light saber and steps back.

 _"No."_


	2. Three Proposals

_A/N: My thank you to the guest reviewers from the previous chapter: for reading this story and leaving me a note on your thoughts!_

* * *

 **Two – Three proposals**

 ** _One_**

She's beautiful in the dying light of the summer day, and it still stuns him. That she's there, that he's there. That they're together. That they're _alive_.

"Padmé…"

"Yes?"

It rushes out like a waterfall. Initially, he intended to tell her something else completely, he believes it was in reference to their dinner. Or weekend plans. Or whatever.

"Marry me."

She laughs, rolling her eyes. Some strands of hair have escaped her bun. They tickle her neck and he feels the overwhelming urge to kiss the same spot. "Idiot. We've been married for years."

He takes her hand, pulls it to his lips and loves how she still blushes, so many years later. "I mean, marry me officially. It's been ten years, we only got wedded by Nabooinan Law."

"So now you want to show the whole galaxy."

He can see comprehension dawn on her face, together with a blush. She ducks her head.

"Does the Council approve?"

"I don't care about the Council."

She sighs. "Anakin…"

"We survived a civil war," he reminds her. "We survived a Sith almost ascending to power. We fought him. We won. The Confederacy is not a threat anymore. The New Republic is stable. The Jedi Council has changed. It might need some more time, but it will come around."

"You want to force their hand?"

He grins. "Now I would _never_ do that, would I?"

She rolls her eyes and swats his hand aside when he tucks the rouge strand of hair back behind her ear. Her voice is drier than Tatooine's deserts. "Of _course_ not."

"Come on," he nudges her. "It must be worth _something._ Hero of the New Republic, First Chancellor, saviors of the galaxy, all that crap, yada, yada. Let's put it to good use."

When she folds her hands in her lap, holding her back so straight, he can see her in the Senate chamber: so tall, so unyielding, so beautiful and strong. Clinging to the ideal of democracy, fighting to protect it with everything she has; everything she is. One man cannot topple a dictator. One Jedi might not be able to kill a Sith Lord, one woman cannot save democracy. But they weren't alone, all those years ago. They had Mon Mothma and Bail Organa, General Rieekan, Bel Iblis, some loyal clone troopers, some spooks. They had the Jedi, on their side: Mace Windu, Obi-Wan, Yoda. And the Wookies. The Bothans. And many others that did not fit into categories, so many others that fought to protect what they deemed worth fighting - and dying - for. Not all of them had the right training, and yet - they fought. One person might not be able to change the course of history. But together, they certainly had achieved _something._ And Anakin will forever and ever be eternally grateful that his children do not have to grow up in a galaxy torn apart by civil war, ruled by a maniac Sith dictator.

"So you only want to marry me again in order to force the Council to agree to the changes you and Obi-Wan proposed, and not because you want to marry me."

He kisses her – soft and unyielding, determined, questioning, and lets all the playfulness bleed away to reveal his utter sincerity and honesty. "You know that I'd marry you everywhere and anywhere, without a doubt or a reason, because I love you and not because I think it would help my schemes."

She smiles into the kiss: reading his mind, sensing his honesty the way she always has. Then, she puts a hand on his chest and carefully pushes him away. "I need to leave now."

He draws back, disappointed. "Yeah? Why?"

"The kids are coming," she tells him, her eyes twinkling. She is slightly flushed, and never looked lovelier. "Besides –"

The door opens, just barely fast enough, and the twins rush in: a force of nature. Their Force presence is so bright he sometimes has to close his eyes. Over their heads he catches Padmé's glance, all love and joy and acceptance, mind and soul and heart. It's a punch to the gut, every time: that she loves him. That she is alive, that the nightmare of that dreaded future without her has been nothing more but that: a nightmare. _Always in change the future is._ Oh, can it, Master Yoda.

Then, he wonders how she knew the kids were coming when _he's_ the one supposed to be Force-sensitive.

She reads it from his face – she always was able to read him completely – and laughs. The sound that reverberates through him, endlessly, he will never get tired of it, _ever._

"I have to leave," Padmé repeats, "I have to find out what paperwork we need to file a galaxy-wide marriage license. And I guess you'll insist on the whole ceremony-shmeremony."

"How strange that you of all, my love, who was not only queen of Naboo but Senator of the Old and Chancellor of the New Republic, would have such an aversion to ceremonies."

"How strange that you, of all, my darling, who never once adhered to any ceremony and Council, would insist on all the accompanying pomp and circumstances."

When she grins at him like that –

"Mom! Dad! That's disgusting!" Luke comments and Leia just covers her eyes and shrieks like a mynock when Anakin kisses his wife. Padmé laughs, a sound deep in her chest that floods him with warmth, and stands in one fluid, graceful motion.

"Someone is begging to be punished here…"

And Anakin grabs his kids and tickles them until they run from him screaming with joy, just to teach them some respect.

He hasn't had nightmares now for a long, long time.

* * *

 _ **Two**_

"So your parents like me."

Solo has the most stubborn, annoying, horrible streak of stubbornness Leia has ever encountered – and that's something, coming from a Skywalker – and his persistence might be laudable in any other guy.

Except that it's _Han Solo_ , the good-for-nothing CorSec guy, and Leia _can't_ _stand his sight_.

"Oh, _pleeeease."_ She drags out the word, injecting venom into it until it's almost unrecognizable. "My parents _like_ you?"

"Okay," he amends, "so maybe your mother likes me. And your uncle, or whatever that creepy Jedi guy is."

She just scoffs.

"Oh, and your droid – the golden one? Whatshisname, Goldenrod?"

"You are not helping your cause here," Leia throws back at him over her shoulder, walking faster, but damn those legs of his, _of course_ he needs not even to lengthen his strides to keep up with her. Why has she inherited her mother's size and not her father's? "Obi-Wan is not creepy. And Threepio likes everyone. He's a _droid_ , for Force's sake."

The grin he flashes her is like electricity zooming through her, hot and alive, and she pushes the feeling down.

It's so much easier working by herself.

Or working with Dameron and Antilles, or really, working with _anyone_ else than Han. Leia is a diplomat. Born, raised, trained both in the Force and in politics, and while Luke prefers to keep to the first she rather enjoys the latter, too. Luke can travel all around the galaxy and keep an eye open for new students and conflicts that need neutral mediators. Leia likes her home world, likes her job here, likes that her parents and her friends are close and that she can just hop on a ship and go see them anytime. Leia likes being able to help in her own way, even if that means discussing boring, out-dated trade agreements in hot and airless rooms with boring, stupid politicians for hours while Luke lives the adventure, hunting for old objects and new students.

Luke would have no trouble getting away for a while to lose a tail, but Leia refuses to run.

Han Solo is CorSec. A security officer for the Correllian government, experienced and decorated various times for valor and bravery, but certainly not for following protocol and keeping a low profile. Following a lead into his investigation regarding slave trade in the Inner Rim he ran into Leia on Kashyyk one day, and since then he seems to have made it his personal project to make random appearances wherever she stays for more than two standard weeks. She has no idea how that fits with his duty roster, but she suspects his superiors have long given up on trying to tell him how to do his job. He does it, is what counts, and does it well despite his propensity to give the term _interpreting mission protocol_ a completely new meaning. Leia's yet to determine whether she finds it exasperating or infuriating. Her money's on the latter.

Impossibly, everyone else seems to _like_ the guy.

How can someone who so obviously goes against all rules of politeness, protocol and general interaction between beings be so popular? But there they were, Han Solo's own fan club. Luke and her mother she gets, in a way, because they are notoriously unable to see the weaknesses in a being's character. But Master Obi-Wan? The traitor, after having met Solo for less than two hours, already had vividly discussed investigation strategies with Solo instead of showing him the door, something Leia had, very much to her own anger, secretly both hoped and dreaded. Her friends like him. Luke's friends like him. Leia has long ago reached a point at which she can't say whether she wants to push him out of the airlock or throw herself at him and kiss him senseless – maybe then, for once, he'd _stop acting_.

For the record, she doesn't think a relationship that is built on mutual annoyance is the thing to share.

"For the last time, Solo, leave me alone."

The door to the air field opens before her. A guard checks her ID and salutes, and she gains a few precious meters when Solo is held to the same security protocols.

"My Ma taught me to respect a lady's answer," he says when he finally catches up with her again. The _Mirrorbright_ suddenly seems light-years away.

She throws him a searing glance. "Does that mean you'll back off?"

"Oh, no." He grins again, disgustingly disarming, with that roguish twist she hates because it makes her feel things she does not want to feel, not here, not now, not with him. ( _Oh, but you love it_ , a voice inside her taunts, and it sounds terrifyingly like him.) "Because, you see, I am pretty sure you keep saying no, but you actually mean yes."

"A no is a no," she snaps back. "Don't make assumptions."

"You'll sing a different tune one day, Princess," he says, loftily. "And then you'll ask me to take you out on a date."

" _Don't_ -"

"Call you Princess. I hear you."

She flees into the _Mirrorbright_ , and, thankfully, he stops pursuing her. She instantly hates herself for missing him.

Leia always dreamed of a grand love story.

How can she not? She has her parents as an example, the Hero Without Fear and the Senator and Savior of the New Republic. Who fell in love against all expectations, who held on to each other against all conventions. Who, between them, ended a civil war. Anakin Skywalker and Padmé Amidala Naberrie are heroes to the entire galaxy. To Leia, though, they are more: her parents, her role models, her idols, the ones that have taught her to sense the Force and to walk straight and proud, who showed her how to use a light saber and how to be heard in a room full of confrontational people. Leia grew up _loved._ Her entire life, she has been witness to the love her parents shared. Her whole life, Leia has watched them: her father, so proud and humble and protective, and her mother, so beautiful, strong and full of love. And Leia always knew, from the moment she first grasped at the edge of it's concept, that she did not want just love. She wanted _that_ kind of love; this all-encompassing, beautiful, strong sentiment. A love that transcended time and reality.

If Luke knew, he'd laugh. But then, Leia expects, on a certain level he does know.

And Han – Solo – well. Leia guesses he is handsome, in a roguish, wild sort of way. His hands are rough and his voice is gruff and his grin pulls up only half of his lips; and Leia thinks that this is not it, is it, she can't be in love, because since when is love so rough and painful and earth-shattering, it can't be that a relationship can be made to work on the constant sparks of fire that fly as soon as Solo and she are in the same room. It's impossible; because she wants red roses and whispered words and handsome smiles, not rough hands and teasing parting words and the smell of hot durasteel and engine grease. Leia wants a beautiful love, not this coarse soldier with questionable morals.

 _But an earth-shattering loyalty,_ a voice in her mind whispers, and she thinks _yes, and to whom?_

One day, her mother said, as she braided Leia's hair, her soft fingers deftly separating the strands. One day, you'll find someone.

 _One day,_ Leia repeats to herself. _Sometime._

But at the same time, her heart yearns for _right now._ Longs for something she can't name, can't voice; something that feels like the adrenaline of a podracing game and the fire of a nice shot of Correllian whiskey, the warmth of a cooling hyperspace drive and the brush of rough hands.

She glances up and through the front window shields of the _Mirrorbright_ and there he is, Solo, carefully checking the _Falcon's_ controls. When he looks up and sees her, the arrogant smile breaks out again. He waves at her cheekily and mouths the nickname he gave her. _Princess._

Leia turns away deliberately.

* * *

 _ **Three**_

She's _good._

It's a thing of beauty, seeing her wield the lightsaber with such practiced ease. Her movements are elegant, full of tightly controlled power. It's like watching a lioness, or perhaps something even more dangerous: the strands of her hair that have fallen out of her tight, long braid surround her face like a coppery halo, her expressive face carries a look of pure and utter concentration, and every movement, every subtle touch of the Force, is designed for one purpose only.

It would just be great, Luke Skywalker thinks, if that purpose wasn't devoted solely to the task of killing him.

He feels a droplet of sweat run down his back.

Here's the son of Anakin Skywalker and Padmé Amidala Naberrie, heroes of the New Republic, twin to Leia Organa Skywalker, senator and diplomat, student of Obi-Wan Kenobi, who is one of the last Jedi Masters of Old. Here's the hero of the Starkiller uprising, one of the saviors of Ithor, discoverer of the secret clone base on Carida, destroyer of the Monolith. Here's Luke Skywalker, twenty-seven years old, who has seen and lived through more than many of his peers and has a connection to the Force that astounds even his father, The Chosen One, occasionally. And just right now, he's being seriously hard-pressed by a woman he didn't even know existed until she followed him all the way from Coruscant to Naboo without him noticing, is hiding her Force presence from him and radiates nothing but the calm killing intent that makes him go utterly cold on the inside.

"I don't mean you any harm."

For the first time, she answers him. Her voice is very much like her Force presence: impersonal. Giving away nothing.

"Neither do I. Your father? Whole different story."

Luke's lightsaber almost twitches in surprise, her gaze is locked on him, burning, and the only reason why she doesn't take advantage right now is the stalemate they are locked in.

(He has been trained in lightsaber combat by the Sword of the Jedi. The only ones he hasn't been able to defeat yet are his father and Grand Master Obi-Wan, and the thought… is humbling.)

"You want to kill me to get at my _father_?"

Her eyes burn into him, sapphire-green, cold fire. "You have no idea who I am, haven't you?"

"Who _are_ you?"

"Your father never told you."

"Told me what?" It's not a trap, he tells himself. He needs to know the reason, and keeping her talking is-

She whirls around, lightning-fast, he only manages to bring his hand up in self-defense, and had he not blocked her with the Force her blade might have cut right through his wrist and severed his hand. The notion of a future path untraveled ghosts past him, whispering.

"Your _hero_ father –" The disdain in her voice is slicing – "Killed my grandfather and crippled my mother."

And, when Luke stares at her, uncomprehendingly, she snaps at him: "Her name was Verissia Palpatine. She was married to Goyan Jade."

 _Verissia Palpatine. No. Verissia Jade._

The name is familiar, and Luke –

There is a story his father told him and Leia, when they were old enough to be taught the Ways of the Jedi. It was a story about trust and mistrust, about deceit and loyalty. Incidentally, it is the story their New Republic is built on: how a man deceived those who trusted in him and strove to eradicate the Jedi and to erect an Empire, how they fought, Jedi and Sith, and how Darth Sidious and his student were defeated in the end. His student had been a woman, and she had managed to flee, and while nobody had found her body the Jedi had _felt_ her die. Luke had seen her in the holocron: the red-haired woman that had served Supreme Chancellor Palpatine so faithfully from the shadows, the woman Anakin Skywalker had considered a friend, too, until it had been revealed that the Sith Lord had not only tried to tempt his young Jedi friend to join the Sith but had been training the woman – his own daughter – in the Dark Ways of the Force, as well. _The Chancellor's Fist,_ Verissia Jade.

So she had had a daughter.

Luke's being assassinated by the daughter of the daughter of Sheev Palpatine, who was also known as Darth Sidious to his followers and as the Traitor Chancellor to those who fought for democracy.

"But why-"

The banister of the walkway behind him groans and shrieks as the Force around him whirls in response to the woman's call. Luke trusts out his own Force control to catapult himself out of the way of the jagged pieces of metal and they separate, each one seeking an advantageous position, the Force humming around them in painful anticipation.

"Why?" She laughs, derisively. "Your family destroyed mine. Your father crippled my mother, both physically and emotionally, she was in constant pain until she died. The only thing she prayed for was that he would feel the pain he had caused her, that he would suffer the same way she had suffered."

"Your mother is dead." He knows, because he can read the grief in her presence, clear and bright even in its hidden state. "Her grudge died with her, too. You don't have to do this."

The words sound unconvincing even to his own ears. Of course she doesn't _have_ to kill him and yet she's determined to do so, for the simple reason that it was the last thing her mother asked of her. Luke can feel it in the Force that is vibrating around her in indecision: _Kill his family for me, Mara. Take the most precious thing from him, as he has taken it from me._

She laughs, no humor in the sound.

"Of course I don't have to do this. I want to do this. Difference, Skywalker."

"You could just walk away. I never did anything to you. I won't follow you, I'll give you my word."

"Are you trying to change my mind? Jedi, you have no idea how long I've waited for this moment. How I've trained. I'm not about to walk away just like that."

 _The Dark Side thrives on fear,_ Luke's father told him, looking sad and small. _It feasts on your darkest, innermost demons._ He's seen his father's memories of Sidious, and he's seen some Sith in real life, too. He has felt their darkness, their anger and burning desire to make the galaxy and the beings in it bend to their will. A mix of fear and violence, terror well-hidden underneath their firmly rooted anger and hatred. He's seen it before, so he knows how it feels like. The strangest thing is this, though: he doesn't feel it in Mara Jade.

She just doesn't _feel_ dark to him.

There is no doubt Sheev Palpatine, who almost toppled the Old Republic, was Darth Sidious. There is no doubt that the man was evil, that he was beyond saving. That he taught his own daughter the ways of the Sith, made her his secret weapon – that is not surprising to Luke. He also wouldn't be surprised if Verissia Jade stepped out of the shadows then and there, declaring her intent to kill him. But that her daughter – Sidious' granddaughter – who never even met her Sith grandfather, who grew up in a world slowly recovering from the painful civil war – would hate him and his family so much, pulls Luke up short.

And _besides_.

Besides, between the pain and the determination and the icy, cold resolution, there is something else. Carefully tucked away in the most hidden, post protected corner of her mind there is a note of sadness buried so deep he can only catch glimpses at it, a sensation so bright and so dim he can barely make it out under the layers and layers of her self-taught armor of steel, determination and duty, and it calls out to him.

 _It calls out to him._

Luke can barely hear it, but the echo of it is incredibly sad. _Sweet._

No.

Mara Jade does not feel dark to him at all.

What, he wonders, must it have felt like to her knowing that though her daughter had survived, Verissia Jade only ever had thought of her dead father? The thought makes him swallow.

"And when I'm done with you," she continues, still dreadfully calm, "I'm going to go after your precious sister."

Everything inside him goes cold.

"Wait -"

"Stop me," she challenges, and _moves_.

He meets her half-way.


	3. Three Evenings

**Three – Three evenings**

 **One**

These room holds all her memories.

So does the whole mansion, actually. The view from the pillared terrace is familiar, and the sound of the waterfalls, of the whispering winds and the crackling fires in the room behind her. Padmé Amidala Naberrie Skywalker loved her home before she learned to love her planet and her people, and she has never regretted putting the latter before her own happiness again and again.

She just is unspeakably glad that every time she had to do it, her happiness followed her.

Smiling over her shoulder, she watches her husband of more than thirty years stop in the wide doors, his expression the mixture of awe, disbelief and overwhelming love she has come to know so well. This is the little boy who shivered, refusing to cry: _Are you an angel?_ This is the cocky young man, annoying, over-protective and over-eager. This is the broken Jedi kneeling on the ground in front of her: _I will kill you, Padmé, I will kill everyone._ This is the man who carried his heart in his eyes when he held his children for the first time. This is Anakin Skywalker, Jedi, Grand Master of the Jedi Order, hero of the Old Republic, protector of the New.

"Someone's here to see you, Senator."

Padmé smiles, widely, as he walks over and presents her with a bundle of blankets and warmth. She takes the baby out of his arms, smiling and cooing at it softly. It gurgles, laughter like angel's whispers, reaching out for her with tiny fists.

"Look who's awake!"

Anakin leans over her and together they peer down at the tiny human being in her arms, swaddled in blankets and smelling sweetly of talcum powder, sunshine and laughter. He nudges the tiny fists with his.

"You should have seen Solo's face when he and Leia left. I almost expected him to turn back and refuse to leave."

She laughs at the images his words incite in her mind's eye. "Even the best lieutenants are only fathers."

"Yes, but _come on_ – Han Solo, battle-hardened pilot, ex-CorSec agent, lieutenant in the New Republic military, who is afraid of nobody and nothing…"

"I remember a time when a _Jedi Master_ who had fought a _tyrant_ and stopped a _Civil War_ didn't want to leave his infant children, either…"

He conveniently overhears her. "I mean, we are capable of taking care of a kid for one evening. It's not like we didn't raise two children already, and, if I might say, they did turn out rather well."

"That they did." Padmé laughs, and leans down to kiss Ben's cheek. "Are they still there?"

"No, Leia dragged him back to the _Falcon_ , they were running late. We didn't want to wake you."

"She's not like her father in that regard, I guess."

"No." Anakin laughs, lightly, and kisses his wife's head. "She's exactly like her mother. Beautiful, smart and she takes no nonsense from her stupid husband."

"You hear that, Ben? Seems like your grandfather learned a lesson there…"

"You bet. I don't want to be skinned alive, after all…"

She manages to bury her elbow in his side, despite holding firmly on to the baby in her arms. One of the few advantages of being vertically challenged. "Keep it up and you'll have to fear that, and worse."

"Awww. I love it when you get feisty– ooooompf!"

Padmé can't help but laugh. "Stop it, Anakin."

Ben gurgles happily, too young to pull faces at them.

After dinner – there is milk for Ben and sandwiches for them – Ben opts out for an early night, Anakin excuses himself to take a comm call and Padmé begins stacking the used dishes. From a corner in the spacious room, Angelica, the house maid, appears, helping quickly and efficiently.

When they're done Anakin is still talking, his features pinched and worried, and Padmé busies herself with other things but stays close to him, just in case. And then she must have nodded off over what Anakin fondly calls her "daily reading assignment", because she wakes up when he sinks down onto the sofa next to her. She is so disoriented that she blinks, multiple times, her hand grasping for the material of his tunic. Anakin holds her until she is completely awake again.

"Hey."

"Hey." His blue eyes blink at her, worried. "Would you like something to drink?"

"Tea, please," she says, still fighting the last remnants of her dream. When he gets up to prepare some she follows him into the kitchen, still rubbing grit from her eyes.

"Are you alright?" Anakin asks her, his hands busy with the kettle. "Should I call the Doctor?"

"I'm fine," she says, and at his suspicious gaze: "Really, Anakin. I am fine. I think I had a dream." He is quiet, and she tries to remember the fractured images and fails. "A nightmare," she corrects herself. "I just… I can't remember. I think… Luke was in it?"

Anakin's spine stiffens. Almost imperceptibly, but she picks up on it immediately. "What is going on, Anakin?"

Being the wife of a Jedi Master is… _trying_.

"Nothing." He bites his lips, reconsiders at her glare. "Well. I'm worried, I guess. Maybe you picked up on that."

Padmé settles into a chair, leans her elbows onto the table and looks up at him. "Are you still worried about the girl?"

"The _girl_?" Anakin laughs, a tad incredulous. "Padmé, she's as old as Luke and Leia are."

"Yes," she consents, smiling. "But our kids will forever be our kids to us, and they're twenty-nine already."

"If you say so." He has long ago learned that arguing with her is of no use. Why should he, too? She usually is right. Anakin shrugs, and Padmé can see the worry in his eyes. "I don't know. I can't get a read on her. She's not a Sith anymore, possibly never has been, as unlikely as it sounds. And I can't really deny her request for training when she never received any official instruction. She is strong in the Force, that we know. Leaving her to run around untrained might be a risk. Then again, it might be not. I…"

His voice trails off as he places the cup of tea on the table in front of her.

"I am just worried something might happen, I guess."

"There is always something happening, love." Padmé wraps her fingers around the cup and looks up at him. "And she's a good girl."

"She tried to kill Luke, and said she'd kill Leia."

His voice becomes sharper, audibly so, and she can see the guilt he carries, the responsibility he burdened himself with. Padmé knows where he comes from – feels some of the same guilt, even – but she also knows that some burdens should not be shouldered. Or, at least, cannot be allowed to weight down on someone.

"But she did not, Anakin. She had the opportunity and she did not take it. Doesn't that prove something? You said that there is no darkness in her."

"I have been wrong before."

She can't help it: she snorts, decisively. "Are you comparing Mara Jade to Palpatine?"

That makes him grin, briefly. "No, thank the Force."

"So now she comes, three years later, three years in which there has been no new attempt on Luke's life. And she's asking you to teach her."

"Stupid, right? I know-"

"She worked with Luke on one or two occasions these past years, and she never once tried to kill him."

"Maybe she's playing the long game."

"But what for?" Padmé gazes out of the window, briefly wondering why she is defending Mara Jade. But it is simple, in a way. She likes her – liked her the moment she stumbled into their lives head-first, just _so_ able to drag Luke's unconscious form with her to safety. "Don't you think she'd have killed us a long time ago if she really wanted it? She's not one hundred per cent trained, but she's also neither stupid nor weak. And I can't see her secretly hoping for another Dark Lord to rise. She watched her mother wither away under Palpatine's last command; she is not likely to ever follow one herself."

"Yes, but that doesn't mean she still won't snap one day."

Padmé reaches out to take his hand, loosely. "It must have been hard for her." He looks at her, his expression empty. "Coming to the very place her mother hated most, wanted her to destroy by any means necessary, and ask the man she has been taught to hate for instruction." And, when he still doesn't react, she carefully places her last piece: "Coming to this place where she knows she is not welcome, and far too different from anyone else, _all by herself_."

Anakin is quiet for a long time.

Then, he laughs, softly, his hand turning to squeeze hers lovingly. "I can't win against you, can I."

Ben's awakening saves her from having to reply to his usual, corny statements, so she just smiles and goes to pick him up. He is grumpy and needs a diaper change, and when everything is done he leans his head against her shoulder, sucks on his fist and mumbles contently.

Padmé carries him over to the window because outside, Naboo's spectacular sunset is just beginning to set the sky on fire. Ben abandons his sticky fist and begins playing with her hair instead. Anakin follows her and she can see it in his reflection: the way he is abruptly reminded of her holding a different baby. Two babies: their twins. But Luke and Leia have their own lives now, and, in Leia's case, their own baby.

They are _grandparents._

On some days, it still sounds like a joke to her.

Anakin steps around her to open the balcony doors. The whisper of the winds in the meadows is a soothing background to the slowly darkening sky.

"Fine," he says, continuing their earlier conversation as if they never stopped. "She's welcome at the Temple anytime." His arm comes up around her.

Padmé turns her face into his shoulder, smiling. "Good."

Before Anakin can say anything else, Angelica rushes in, visibly flustered. Padmé _really_ needs to talk to her about her crush on certain military men– "Senator, Lieutenant Solo and Lady Leia-"

She is immediately followed by Han, who rushes past her without waiting for her to finish.

"Ben, buddy! Daddy is back!"

Leia follows at a more sedate pace, grinning.

Padmé and Anakin exchange one glance and start laughing.

* * *

 _ **Two**_

"Mara Jade. Back off, slowly. Put your hands were I can see them."

There is movement behind her, the rustling of more people arriving, and Mara, facing the wall, puts down the ceraplast knife very, very slowly, lifts her hands and deliberately does _not_ turn around.

"I mean it. Step away from the counter. Now."

This time she obeys the challenge, turning around, and uses her most derisive tone.

"You think you are _so_ funny, Skywalker Solo."

Leia grins at her, half in-, half out of her coat. At her feet, bags and parcels are pooled, and Han takes his wife's coat as soon as she has discarded it and puts it on the racks. _Well-trained_ , Mara thinks, approvingly, and focuses back on the main issue.

"I'm not joking. Remember the last time when you came into close contact with food that was meant for dinner?"

Mara rolls her eyes so strongly she feels slightly dizzy. "Calm down, you and Luke saved it. And besides, where is your faith? I can at least slice vegetables."

"Slicing is one of your major abilities," Han jumps in, cheerfully-sardonic, and Mara can't help herself: she shoots him an icy look.

"My skills have gotten rusty, though. Mind if I train on you a bit?"

Leia steps in, smoothly, always the diplomat. "As much as I enjoy this, I have to ask you to keep the physical damage tonight to a minimum. As for Han, Mara, I still am in need of his services, so please don't hurt him too badly."

Han leers. "So you have need of me, Mylady?"

"I can spare his face," Mara suggests, and Leia laughs.

"Yes, please."

Han grumbles, and disappears through another door. Mara helps Leia pick up all the parcels and packages, and what looks like enough comestibles to feed an army is soon piled up on the kitchen table.

"Stang, how many people have you invited?"

"Oh," Leia says vaguely, cross-checking the recipe on her data-pad with her groceries. "It's just us, and you, and Wedge and Iella, and Corran, Mirax, Tionne and Kam Solusar, Kenth Hamner, Cilghal, Wes Janson, Tycho Chelchu and Winter and…"

At Mara's horrified glance, she laughs again. Leia laughs a lot. It is… nice. There hasn't been much joy in Mara's life prior to the Skywalker clan. And isn't _that_ ironic, too.

"Relax! No need to bolt. It's just me and Han and you tonight – and Luke."

Mara let all sentiments slip from her face. "I see."

Leia looks, honestly worried. "I am sorry. I wanted to have the two of you be able to relax in a quiet atmosphere. I know your interaction has been strained, lately-"

"It's been a few years since I last tried to kill your brother."

"I know, that's in the past. At first I thought, if Luke can forgive and trust you, I trust you, too. But it's not that. I _trust_ you, Mara. You're my friend. Don't ever think something different, okay?"

It stings. The bond between the Skywalker twins – it is something Mara never had, never will have, most probably. She does not deserve this – being allowed to live, to come to the Temple, to learn and train and work with the Jedi. She does not deserve the trust they put in her, and yet… Yet, she cannot leave. This is what it must feel like to be caught in a Sarlacc's digestive system. Probably considerably less smelly, though.

Will Leia still insist on being her friend if she knows?

"Was it wrong?" Leia asks, unaware of the whole world of arguments running through Mara's head, and Mara, with a sudden, dizzying rush, once again realizes how much she likes this woman: this wonderful, brave, kind woman who cares for everyone, no matter how bruised and broken. "Shouldn't I have invited Luke?"

"No." Mara swallows the lump in her throat and prays the day will come that she will be able to tell her. "No, it's fine."

Leia looks relieved.

"So what's your plan?"

As usual, questions and the prospect of making plans cause the woman to jump into action. "I thought we could have some salad, Ithorian style, and then nerf steak stew with blue potatoes. And crêpes for dessert?"

"I rest my case. An army."

"Well. Luke and Han will finish it off, I promise."

"Okay. Tell me what to do to help you." And, at Leia's glance: "I _can_ slice vegetables, really. I can even make a decent salad. Nothing to burn there."

Leia laughs, brilliantly. "I know. Go ahead with the salad, then."

For a while, they work side by side in comfortable silence. Mara feels it almost at the same time as Leia lifts her head, announcing: "Luke's there." A minute later, the door chime rings, prompting Han to storm from the living room.

"Luke!"

He enters like he always does, the presence that steals her breath on so many different levels, and Mara just – stops. Blinking, thinking. Breathing. He hugs Han, with the usual, manly back-patting thing. Then he grabs Leia, lifts her and whirls her around, and Leia laughs, bright-eyed. Finally, he walks over, his eyes cautious but warm.

"Mara."

She manages a nod. There's nothing else she can do. He doesn't touch her – the last time didn't go so well, and he's careful around her these days. It's the consideration she despises. His care and kindness. As if she is a broken thing that cannot be fixed, only be pitied.

"Ben's with Mum and Dad?" Luke asks his sister and she nods, laughing. "Han made a fool of himself again."

Han pretends to be busy opening the bottle of Alderaanian wine.

The dinner goes fairly well, and Mara finds herself enjoying the company the same way as always. Leia was right, she needs some calm, some peace. She might also need some distance from certain people, but – well. Anyway, the dinner helps her clear her head a bit – it doesn't make anything easier, but she can pretend it does – and she watches Luke joke with Han, and gently tease his sister, and Leia gives back as good as she gets because they are twins, and both Force-trained. And Mara can see the love they share floating around them in vivid colors, so warm and so bright it blinds her whenever she tries to look at it straight. The guys clean up and do the dishes, because the women cooked. Mara and Leia sit in the living-room, each with a glass of wine, and Mara thinks now, tell her, go ahead, and the only thing she says is "So Iella told me she doesn't think of Wedge _that way_." Leia scoffs, and rolls her eyes. Luke and Han join them, shortly afterwards, and she buries the thought again, deep, deep in the darkness of her own memories.

Nothing is ever buried and forgotten, though.

It would be sweet to say Luke accompanies her home. In fact, they simply have the same destination. Coruscant is incandescent at night, all steel and silver lights and velvet, Luke's presence next to her is familiar and she bathes in it, draws strength from it until she can't hold it in any longer. She wants to say _Luke, I'm leaving the Temple,_ maybe make some half-baked excuses, even lie outright ( _I don't love you anymore, it's over)_. What comes out, instead, is:

"I'm pregnant."

He stops dead on the walkway, the lights behind him giving him a halo; he is shadow and light and everything in between that she is and is not, and so beautiful it _hurts._ Mara turns away and blocks out the Force bond that might or might not have been growing between them.

She cannot block out his reaction.

He doesn't even ask if he's the father. He just… _soars,_ his presence in her mind lighting up like a candle in the darkness. It's so strong she can't stop it, can't run, can't hide, so Mara clings to the last remnants of her own control and buries everything she is.

Her lies make him waver. Something inside her crows in victory, while the rest of her is cold and still.

But his stubborn belief wins out, his instincts, his intuition, _I don't believe that, Mara, you don't believe that yourself,_ and she is exultant – desperate – _terrified_. It's the worst idea ever, this started off as the worst idea ever and the best thing in her life and then she went and ruined it all.

"You are aware that there need to be two people for something like that to happen?" Luke asks her, his smile just _so_ off, she offended him, hurt him, and she's immediately sorry. "Do you think I'd be a bad father?"

She thinks he is the only man in the world she wants as her baby's father, but she can't tell him that, can she?

"Mara." He frames her face with his hands and she is forced to look at him, and she loves him so much it hurts. "Do you love me?"

She doesn't answer.

But he knows – he reads it in her face, senses it in her presence, sees it in her eyes. The smile spreading over his face is exultant.

"Marry me."

She jerks back, startled. "What?"

"Marry me, Mara Jade."

"Why?"

"Should I feel offended? Because I love you, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you."

"I am pregnant. People will think I conned you into a wedding."

"You are wonderful. And I don't care what people think, if they can't see you the way I see you, they probably don't think at all."

 _Terrified_ is more what she is, right now. But his voice is so _certain_ – his Force presence so calm, so earth-shatteringly _sure_ – there is no way she cannot believe him.

So she falls for him.

 _Again_.

"I tried to kill you."

 _Do you know how much I love you?_

He laughs, winding his arms around her and not flinching when she grabs the back of his tunic so tightly it has to be painful. "I actually expected you to tell me you were breaking up with me tonight. It did kill me, a little bit. Don't do that again, please."

"If you promise to not get into trouble in the future."

He laughs. "We will be just fine, my heart."

* * *

 _ **Three**_

"Bad idea. Bad, _baaad_ idea."

Ben has been shaking his head since the twins found him in his little hideaway, blissfully reading about the history of Ryloth and its wandering inhabitants on the datapad he had smuggled into the banquet hall, and dragged him out and away for an adventure.

Ben rarely agrees with his cousin's idea of _adventure_.

Now, that doesn't mean that he doesn't like adventures per say – he does, actually, although he also likes to sit and read about dusty historic sites and beings that don't exist anymore, so the twins and he probably disagree on their definition of what the word _adventure_ entails. But there also is adventure and there is _adventure_ , and his cousins usually seem to attract the second kind.

"Oh, come on!" Jaina skips along the corridors, her curly hair half out of its confines and trailing behind her. She is wearing a dress – she rarely does, but she knows when she needs to.

Jacen follows Ben, equally energetic, his green eyes sparking. He is dressed similarly to Ben: a dress shirt, trousers and polished shoes. "Confess already, you were as bored as we were."

"I wasn't," Ben protests, caught in between his cousins leading him away from the large halls in which the large evening gala is still going on. "I was happily reading in my corner."

"I don't know why they brought us here in the first place." Jaina stops in front of a door and inspects it. It's closed, and Ben breathes an inaudible sigh of relief. "It's all these politicians discussing a possible alliance or whatsnot, we could have stayed at the Temple. At least we'd be able to watch holovids there."

"Weren't you the ones who refused to stay at the temple while the summit was being held?" Ben sounds resigned, because he knows the answer.

"Well." Jacen shrugs, but he does not look one bit repentant. "They should have forced us to stay, then. Aren't adults supposed to know what's best for kids?"

The twins have the weirdest reasoning, like, _ever._ Ben's just two years older, but he can see why so many teachers speak of them (in hushed voices, of course) as the bane of their existence. Which, by the way, is a nice term they taught him there, and he has adapted it for his own use already.

"Jay, wait."

Jacen has stopped behind them and is glimpsing out of the window. It's already dark outside, the corridor is dim and unlit, and although Ben's eyes are adjusting to the little light his cousins are mere shadows.

"What is it?" Jaina returns, the bounce clear in her step.

"I think I saw something-"

"Oh, was it one of those bat-like things again?"

"Yes, I think so."

They lean out of the window dangerously and Ben hovers, just in case.

"I saw them over the towers yesterday. They're brilliant fliers. Seemed to be the younger ones, though, I wonder where the elders were."

"And there were some in the caves when they took us on that tour two days ago, but they had a different wing shape-"

"Dad says he felt sentience in them, maybe they can communicate with us-"

"Do you think I could tame one? We could take it back to Coruscant, as a pet, that'd be _so_ _cool_ -"

"I don't think the Qom Qae would appreciate being taken away," a voice offers, next to Ben's elbow, and all three children jump.

Ben feels the twin's surprise, alive and naïve, and pushes himself in front of them. He doesn't have a light saber yet, Uncle Luke won't let him build one until he is fourteen no matter how much he pleads and coaxes and promises. But he gathers the Force around him, stretches his senses in alarm and preparation and waits for his eyes to adjust.

The newcomer stands with his face towards the window, but Jaina's and Jacen's figures are blocking the light.

"Who are you?" Ben demands.

"I did not mean to startle you." The voice is calm, and young, and then a light flashes up and the corridor comes into focus. A boy is standing there, his dark hair combed back stiffly, his hands clasped behind his back. "My name is Jagged Fel. You are with the New Republic's delegation."

Ben nods. "And you?"

"Confederacy."

Even if Ben hadn't read everything he could get his hands on about the New Republic's history, he would have heard of the Confederacy of Independent Systems, the separatist faction that left after it lost the civil war against the forces of the Galactic Republic. Even if Ben hadn't read _at all_ , he would recognize the name Fel: he was the son of Leia and Han Skywalker Solo, after all, and the grandson of Padmé and Anakin Skywalker, Heroes of the Republic. Among the followers of the Traitor Chancellor had been a Soontir Fel, one of the best fighter pilots of his age; who had defected to the New Pepublic, had met and married Wynnsa Starflare Antilles, and then… had diappeared. This… could be his son, possibly.

"Hapes Cluster."

A girl steps out of the boy's shadow, her hair almost the same shade of copper as Jacen and Jaina's. She's in an elaborate dress – there are gemstones in her hair and on her wrists – and Kriff, Ben hasn't felt _her_ , either.

"You!" Jaina's eyes light up at the sight of the girl. "I saw you in the gardens yesterday, what were you doing? Training?"

The girl looks back at them with careful grey eyes. "It is a Dathomiri sword dance my mother taught me."

This, apparently, is Jacen's cue. "Awesome! Have you been to Dathomir? Have you seen a wild rancor? They say they are larger and more feral than the jungle rancors of Felucia-"

He stops short at the simultaneous glares the girl and the Fel boy grace him with.

"Ignore him," Jaina breaks into the one-sided conversation again, still focused on the girl. "Those moves, can you teach me?"

The girl blinks, looks at the boy. He shrugs, and she turns back to Jaina. "Why not?"

Ben suddenly has the uncomfortable feeling that they are currently collecting half of the future generation of all major players in the game of politics the New Republic is currently immersed in, so he lets it go quickly.

"Maybe tomorrow? It's dark, anyway."

Thankfully, Jaina is open to reason tonight, maybe because he agreed to join the twins on their adventure.

"Tomorrow, then!" She skips around her twin and Ben and grabs the girl's hand. The girl flinches back first but then calms, and Ben – Ben now can feel her in the Force. She must be Force-sensitive, too. When he stretches out to Jagged again to make sure, there is nothing.

"So what were you doing?" Jagged asks, carefully modulated.

"We were exploring!" Jacen tells him, cheerfully. "I'm sure there is a secret passage somewhere here. The base looks like it is carved from stone. There might be a cave system underneath, or some hidden corridors in the walls… They're far too thick, anyway."

"There is a passage behind the next tapestry," Jagged supplies, and even the Hapan girl perks up.

"Where? Where does it lead? Show us!" Jaina demands, already making her way past them, her hand still holding on to her – new friend, Ben supposes. Jaina makes friends easily.

Sometime later they indeed are in the middle of a hidden passage, dust puffing up underneath their steps, cobwebs clinging to their clothes. Jacen has a smudge of dirt on his nose. The Hapan girl's dress looks seriously crumpled, but she does not seem to care. Jagged's white shirt still is spotless, however is he doing this? But Ben feels the joy of discovery race through his veins, too, and he carefully follows the younger kids, making sure they stay together.

The corridor leads past the banquet hall. There are little slits in the wall, and they can watch the adults inside the room talking and sipping their drinks. Uncle Luke and Aunt Mara are dancing, Aunt Mara is scowling but there is laughter in her eyes. Ben sees his mother at the far side, talking to an elegant lady wearing a dress that is very short and vaguely looks like it is made from animal hide. They spend some time watching and – in Jaina's and Jacen's case – giggling, and the Hapan girl slowly warms up to them (Jacen's jokes she does not get, but that does not seem to matter), and Ben and Jagged find common ground when they talk about starfighters. At one point it gets boring watching the adults, though, so they continue on and find an intersection, and Jagged confesses he never went further than here.

"Let's go right," Jacen decides, and they follow. The corridor leads upwards, slightly, and then straight on without too many twists and turns, and then down a long staircase. There were little slits in the wall before, letting in some light. At this point it gets dark and they have to rely on touch. They form a line and continue on, both giddy and more careful.

"Here's a- wait, a door," Jacen hisses. "It's –"

And because the door opens without a sound, and because all of them are leaning forward to see what he sees, they tumble straight into the room, brightly lit and warm.

It is empty, thank the Force for small favors.

"Wheew," Jaina says and looks at their surroundings. "Looks like a locker room or something?"

"One of the guard rooms," Jagged says. "I never knew there was a second entrance in here."

The door they have come through closes with a thud, and they whirl around. Ben sees Jaina and Jacen exchange glances, and he gets a _really_ bad feeling.

"Ehm, guys?"

Jaina searches for a handle, but the door seems to have merged seamlessly with the wall again, invisible most probably because it is a _secret_ passage. She pulls a face. " _Karabast_."

The Hapan girl straightens her dress and marches to the other door. "Then we leave through this one-"

She hits the opener. The door remains closed.

Jagged grimaces. "You need a key card to enter or leave these rooms."

"That's stupid," Ben argues. "What if there's an alarm and someone is caught in here?"

"In case of an alarm, all doors open automatically. In most parts of the base, at least."

"Oh."

They look at each other in silence, until Jaina starts giggling. "Well, that's a fine pickle."

Jacen grins at her. "You want to call Dad?"

"Sure as hell not."

Ben sighs and walks over to the door, pulling out a set of microscrewdrivers from his pocket. "Let me try something."

"You know your way around locks?" Jagged asks. He seems calm, too, and the Hapan girl just shrugs, so he guesses he does not need to brace himself for a panic attack from either of them. Jacen and Jaina, he knows. They're having way too much fun.

"I know my way around electronics. Never tried to crack an electronic lock, though."

"Well, worth a try."

The twins busy themselves with going through the room's contents with the Hapan girl, while Jagged – who most likely knows everything in here already – watches Ben. When the twins have nothing left to investigate, they sneak up behind him again.

"How long's that going to take?"

"We should hurry, Mum and Dad could come looking for us anytime. Aunt Leia and Uncle Han, too."

"Hey." He works without turning his head, using his screwdrivers to lift a bunch of wires that look, frankly, like cable salad to him. But he can feel them humming with static, and _purpose_. "Don't rush me. _Someone_ got us trapped in here, and as sure as Tatooine is a desert planet it wasn't _me_."

"All of his father's skill…" Jacen says, sighing mournfully.

"And none of his mother's subtlety!" Jaina thrills, completing her twin.

Ben shoots them a pained look. "You sound like Uncle Luke."

"Like Aunt Leia, actually." Jacen smirks at his cousin, who only rolls his eyes exaggeratedly and carefully continues probing the door barring their exit.

Distantly, he can feel the Hapan girl trying to sort out his cousins. He wishes her luck, he's known them since their birth and they're still an unsolvable riddle to him, even though he loves them dearly. He keeps his eyes on the cables, not wanting to lose the right one, scrambles for the microtweezers on the floor next to him and feels it being pushed into his hand.

"Thanks."

"You're welcome."

Jagged is so quiet he almost disappears, and Ben has an idea how he was able to sneak up on them earlier that night.

"Okay. Here goes." He presses the tweezers down, and the kids hold their breath collectively.

There's a discharge somewhere in the depths of the electronic lock, some sparks fly – they jump backwards, Ben landing on his behind rather unceremoniously, while Jagged catches Jaina and Jacen and the Hapan girl never even budges. The door hisses open and reveals a pair of feet, no, two – two people. _Many_ people.

Ben swallows.

"Hi, Mum."

His mother is looking down at him without any expression in her face, and for once he cannot feel amusement bubble within her. Ben swallows again. There is a tall, grey-haired man next to her wearing a stark-white uniform, and the man's gaze goes to Jagged immediately. His voice is almost a growl.

"Jagged. I told you to stay put."

Jagged bows his head. "Yes, Father."

Uncle Luke is behind Mum and General Fel, his smile open and warm. "I believe I told you something similar."

The twins look at each other, and, sensing the situation, keep their mouths firmly shut.

"Your mother is waiting for you, Tenel Ka," Mum says, and there is warmth in her voice. So she is not angry, Ben thinks, relieved. The girl – Tenel Ka – turns to Jaina. They exchange glances – _tomorrow_ – and the girl walks of, poised and graceful. She is joined by two women in uniform-like gear who line up behind her, bodyguards? Jup, definitely not a simple girl.

Ben feels his mother's hand on his shoulder, warm, familiar, and leans into her for a second.

"The commotion they have caught ought to be punishment enough," she says to the strict man in uniform. "And I apologize for the inconvenience. Thank you for this evening, General. Have a good night."

"Good night, Lady Skywalker Solo. Master Skywalker."

"General Fel."

Jacen and Jaina follow her and Ben, Uncle Luke close behind. Ben glances back at Jagged and nods, and the boy nods back. As soon as they are out of earshot, Uncle Luke grins and pats the twin's head, and they bury under his arms, leaning into his side.

"You created quite a ruckus there."

Mum has no need to be diplomatic anymore, and her smile is warm and familiar. She's not angry, and neither is Uncle Luke. For a second, Ben wonders: will it be the same for Jagged and Tenel Ka? Do they have parents like the Skywalker kids have, too? Because for him, this is it, the reason why he never once was afraid tonight, never doubted, for a second, that everything would be alright. He knew his mother would find him. For the twins, it is the same.

"And however you managed to convince the son of the Confederacy's head diplomat and the daughter of the Hapan crown princess to play hooky I would love to know."

The guest quarters are next to each other.

At their respective rooms, Jaina, Jacen and Ben exchange glances, the twins tucked against their father's side, Mum's arm around Ben's shoulder, and the smile they share is equal parts content and expectant.

 _Tomorrow._

They dream of a large base full of nooks and crannies to hide and play in, of a Hapan princess who teaches them a sword dance and a general's son who discusses starfighter models and watches, hawk-eyed and quiet.

 _Together._

The Force whispers, peacefully.


End file.
